Tracker for Trade Bilateralization

[junukitashepard]

This is a task tracker for the bilateralization tool, initialized in PR#438

• Clarify terms in documentation: The following terms need to be better defined in the documentation: what it is, it is an accounting technology or a real technology with a lifetime, general examples, and the corresponding technology name in the latest R12 scenario.
  • trade technology
  • flow technology
  • and two other categories, supply technology and bunker technology (the naming of these two is not as self-explanatory as trade tech and flow tech, but fare enough)
• Change project_name to path_name throughout: In general we should avoid describing a work by project names. I also realized that every time you call project_name, you do not mean a specific combination of bilateralized commodities (A+B+C commodities for project X, D commodity for project Y), but simply the path that users are working on. If my understanding is correct, can we just use path_name instead?
• Consider refactoring: Are you familiar with the current make_spec() (require/add/remove), apply_spec(), and add_par_data() workflow used in build materials/water/transportation/cost tool? You may find that some of your add_trade_data() can apply add_par_data(). I do not insist on a refactor. As I was able to build bilateralization of all commodities covered by the current default config on a recent R12 scenario in 14 minutes on my machine. Nothing to complain about the performance.
• Autoreport commodity and technology names: It will be great if new trade and flow technologies, as well as new trade commodities, are generated in the commodity.yaml or technology.yaml too. Maybe you are already working on this in the report PR. This autogeneration is also one benefit of make_spec() -> apply_spec() -> add_par_data() style.
• Build tutorial: One showcase of how users can use it (e.g., higher cost of a specific trade pair on a specific shipped commodity) so they understand what they do NOT need to touch in a default setup. But the whole tutorial part can be done later.
• Add type_tec to bilateralized trade for legacy reporting: This folds into the default_tables.py updates to be made, which would filter on type_tec instead of technologies themselves